Fred Grimm The Miami Herald

April 27, 2010

Fred Grimm
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693

RE: Oil Spill in the Gulf – Another cross for Floridians to bear as you artfully explain in your column today.

Mr. Grimm,

When you’re right, you’re right. Like the Reverend Wright said, “Chickens coming home to roost”. In our selfish quest for comfort we may have doomed the planet. If it’s not Global Cooling it’s Global Warming. If it’s not those bogeymen it’s the even worse Climate Change. You may wish to become familiar with Tony Vivaldi, an obscure Italian climatologist. He explained all this, delightfully so, centuries ago.

After more than 60 years, with as many as 6500 producing wells, it was bound to happen. Add to this the 29 dead coal miners and perhaps we have reached a tipping point.

Florida’s time has come.

More than 25% of the gasoline used in Florida comes from oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico. Coal is the main fuel used by utilities to produce electricity in this country. 50% of the electricity used in Florida goes for air conditioning.

The first thing we can do is turn off the A/Cs. Sine 1997 I have been asking the Miami Herald to show us the way, to be the first to turn off the A/C in its HQ by the bay. Open the windows. Get some of the balmy and sultry breezes to circulate. It will be good for you. As a bonus think how many polar bears you will save.

We must have a Manhattan Project for transportation. If we can split the atom we can make organic skateboards zoom.

The internal combustion engine is, as former VP Alpha Gump tells us, “the worst invention of mankind”.

Just like China’s One Child policy has led them to being our biggest creditor, our One Car policy will lead us back to greatness. Not One Car per person but rather One Car per nuclear family. Unlike voting and immigration a photo id will be required for random stops. The hugely successful odd/even day program of the 1970s will serve as the paradigm. If you have a vanity plate, one without numbers, tough. You’re a fat cat and you must suffer. That will help. Besides, it’s only “fair”.

An immediate answer, but one that will take 12 to 15 years to implement, is nuclear power. Ever since those noted nuclear engineers, Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas, warned us of the dangers of a nuclear reactor turning into Hiroshima we have been reluctant, like Ned Ludd, to embrace technology. It was a good choice, wasn’t it?

As if things weren’t bad enough word comes from Havana that those ever popular ladrones grandes, los hermanos Castro, have signed a deal with the Chi-Coms to drill off their coast. In case you’ve forgotten your geography their coast is contiguous to our coast. We may have a problem there.

There are Florida students still suffering from FCATitis who will become lawyers. In time they will litigate the issues of this spill. Alas, the only party with standing in Havana over this issue would be the United States Navy. We once went to war to make the world safe for democracy. Think how much better the dead will rest knowing that they died so that fewer glaciers would melt.

That’s why you have to start jogging to work. That your work will be done in a no carbon footprint building, one that helps to heal the hole in the ozone layer, will doubtless be of great comfort. It ain’t easy being green.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

You first.




Kevin Smith



PS – The time has also come to say good-bye to plastic, don’t you think?